The Internet, through its billions of Web pages, provides a vast and quickly growing library of information and resources. In order to find desired content, computer users often make use of search utilities. Exemplary Internet search engines are well known in the art, for instance, a commonly known commercial engine is the BING search engine provided by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. Generally, such search utility home page background images are static images that may be visually appealing to the user but offer little else in terms of an immersive experience or to encourage attachment of the user with the search utility.
In some cases, panoramas and other high-resolution images (or collection of images) are used as a background image for the search engine home page. Such rich images often have details provided within the image that users are unable to view unless the user zooms into the image. One exemplary technology that may be utilized to achieve this functionality is the DeepZoom/SeaDragon technology owned by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. and currently used within the PHOTOSYNTH branded services and applications. In such cases that background images offer rich content, the user is required to manually zoom into various aspects of the image to identify any interesting details or experiences within the image.